Australia 'party to bugging of UN'

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Australia was party to spying on the United Nations, including Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to assist the lobbying campaign for launching the war against Iraq.

Intelligence community sources confirmed that the Howard Government received details of the UN bugging, in response to revelations to be published in a book by a senior Australian intelligence analyst turned whistleblower, Andrew Wilkie.

The book, which has been vetted by the Attorney-General's Department and had some details censored on national security grounds, also states that:

Australian agencies gathered intelligence on the US Administration and reported that allegations of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorists were not the main reasons it wanted to invade Iraq.

The Opposition was deliberately misled during briefings by intelligence agencies in the lead-up to the war, with facts undermining the Government's position omitted.

The Government knowingly presented false intelligence to the public that exaggerated the threat that Saddam Hussein posed.

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Mr Wilkie's book documents a remarkable transformation from a career as a conservative, respected military officer to a Greens candidate running against Prime Minister John Howard in his Bennelong seat in the forthcoming federal election.

During an interview with The Age, Mr Wilkie said he would still be a senior international issues analyst for Mr Howard's Office of National Assessments - Australia's main intelligence assessment agency - if not for his dismay at the "completely bogus" reasons presented in early 2003 for invading Iraq.

In Axis of Deceit, Mr Wilkie confirms a former British cabinet member's claims that sensitive UN communications were intercepted in the lead-up to the war. The Age has confirmed that the interceptions were made by a five-way electronic intelligence gathering and sharing network made up of Australia, Britain, the US, New Zealand and Canada.

The UN was monitored and assessed with almost as much vigour as Iraq itself.
- Andrew Wilkie

"The UN was monitored and assessed with almost as much vigour as Iraq itself," Mr Wilkie writes. Australia, US and Britain also placed spies inside UN organisations, including weapons inspection teams, to collect intelligence.

His book states that "there was a deliberate and official campaign to eavesdrop on the most sensitive UN communications during the lead-up to the war".

"The UN was spied on at the highest level," Mr Wilkie told The Age. "I am not able to speak in any detail, I am not able to say what was edited from the book."

He would say only that Australia was part of the "five-eyes" arrangement, a global system of communications interceptions (including Australian ground stations). Intelligence sources confirmed that the arrangement was used to spy on the UN.

Mr Wilkie did confirm that Australia was also "party to the organised use of UN agencies as a cover for covert activities".

The Howard Government had placed the US high on its official "National Foreign Intelligence Assessment Priorities" list guiding spy agencies, he said. "Mr Howard and Alexander Downer knew exactly why the US was going to war and that terrorism and WMD was not the most important part of the reason," Mr Wilkie said.

The US wanted to gain control of oil reserves, reinforce its global power ascendancy, respond to domestic political considerations after the September 11 attacks and influence the shape of the Middle East, he said. Confidential US Administration information was obtained from sources and contacts, then communicated back to Australia in diplomatic cables, he said.

By late 2002, the ONA had determined that the US had already decided to invade Iraq, the book states.

Repeated claims by the Howard Government that its WMD case against Iraq accurately reflected the views of national intelligence agencies were "plainly wrong", Mr Wilkie said.

In 2002, the ONA knew that evidence that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear program with uranium purchases from Africa was false. The agency also knew that any WMD capacity held by Iraq was limited and there was no hard evidence to show Saddam was "weaponising".

Subtle, but effective pressure was exerted on the ONA to deliver what the Government wanted to hear, he said.

The Government manipulated the flow of intelligence information to the Opposition, Mr Wilkie said, ensuring only material supporting its policies was conveyed.

He participated in a briefing to then Opposition leader Simon Crean, where the ONA presented "an unbalanced assessment of the situation in Iraq in general and the state of Saddam's WMD in particular". The strong doubts about the capacity of any WMDs in Iraq and links to al-Qaeda were excluded.